russian roulette
by viennacantabile
Summary: Chino, facing hell in the only way he knows how.


Disclaimer: Not mine, not yours. :)

Note: Took a short break from working on fta to finish this up (my first ever fic with no Jets, heh). Hope you like. :)

For: **HedgehogQuill**, the valiant authoress who has braved the depths of hell (Suefics -_-;) and stayed up with me tonight. :)

—viennacantabile

* * *

russian roulette

.

Just where is it, he thought, the line that separates insanity? Any man who would pull this trigger now would be insane. Am I insane? because I put it loaded to my head? or because I touch the trigger?

—James Jones, From Here to Eternity

.

Chino has never fired a gun before, has never stretched his arm and sighted his target and heard that _click_ of the hammer rising, but as he runs through the dark empty streets of West Side, he breathes in the metallic smell of the hot damp pavement rising up all around him and determines to do just that. There is, he knows, a first time for everything.

He figures it can't be that hard. He's seen Bernardo holding the gun, turning it over in his long elegant fingers, studying the weight and the heft of it, and if Bernardo can buy such a thing, own such a thing, it must be all right, because Bernardo, of all the Sharks, always knows what to do.

Knew. It's so sudden a change that he keeps forgetting that Bernardo is not just around the corner, not back at the apartment building, not ready to show the Jets who is the new leader around here. He is falling, gutted like a fish and lying curled up around the great gaping wound in his stomach in that tomb beneath the highway. He is dead.

And this is why, Chino reasons, focusing on that awful image with burning intensity, it is all right. Though he is a Shark, Chino has never particularly cared for fighting, least of all this way, but as he slides his fingertips along the smooth surface of the gun he can feel in his heart that _this is right_. It's just for protection, he thinks. Protection of everything he knows. The Sharks. His family. And the girl he never knew he loved so much until she cried out for her lover, the murderer of her own blood.

He was her brother, he thinks, over and over again, heart hammering agonizingly hard against his chest. She was never so beautiful to him as in that moment. He was her brother.

"_Chino!_"

It's quiet and faint, but he can hear it—the night is calling his name, leading him toward his target. And Chino sends up a prayer of thanks to God. He is right. This is right.

"_I'm callin' for ya!_"

There is something so impersonal about killing him with a gun, but Chino likes to think it's Bernardo, reaching back from the great beyond to have his vengeance. Brother, he vows, in spirit, if not to be in life.

"_There's nobody here but me—come on—_"

Here, thinks Chino, breathing in and out as his feet pound against the pavement. I am here.

"_Please, will ya? I'm waitin' for ya—_"

He is skidding into familiar ground now, around the candy store the Jets call home. It is only fitting, he thinks, that it should be here, where a boy made his deal with the devil and condemned them all to the fire.

"—_I want you to_—"

He asks for salvation. And Chino will grant his wish.

"Tony!"

Chino, a flash of scarlet spotting his vision, shakes his head—he knows this new voice—but he makes himself focus as he rounds the last corner. His purpose is clear, he knows what to do, and there is no stopping the events in motion now.

"_Maria?_" asks the voice, disbelieving and shaken and scared. And Chino is running and running and yes, _Maria_, he thinks, glimpsing that beautiful face and stopping in his tracks, the Mother of God. She is all that is left for you now.

"_Maria!_"

And as he raises his arm he can feels hot liquid strength rushing into his wrist, hand, fingers, urging him to press the trigger and release the bullet that will be their absolution. This is for Bernardo, for Maria, for himself, for all of them—

It's louder than he expects.

Chino has seen western and shoot-'em-up movies whenever he could scrape together the change to get in, but it's not until he's standing there panting, rocked by the recoil and the kick and the bang, that he understands that there are things movies don't tell you about killing a man.

Bernardo, he thinks in the quiet that follows as Tony falters, collapses into the arms of someone Chino once knew. And suddenly he feels very alone, and very scared. The gun is heavy as lead in his hands. Maria.

And through the haze of red setting in, Chino takes one deep, shuddering breath, because he knows that for better or for worse, nothing will ever be the same again. Oh, God, he thinks. It is not a prayer, it is not a plea, because there is no God in this city. Oh, God.

Chino has never fired a gun before, never reached forward and sent justice flying into the heart of a killer and into the fabric of their lives, but on this night—on this starless, pitch-black night—Chino plunges into the depths of hell and does just that. There is, after all, a first time for everything.

.

.end.


End file.
